


Trophies Under Glass

by annalore



Category: National Football League RPF
Genre: Aging, Denver Broncos, Easy - Freeform, M/M, NFL, New England Patriots, New York Giants, Retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-31
Updated: 2014-01-31
Packaged: 2018-01-10 16:11:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1161825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annalore/pseuds/annalore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a place in the Back Bay that he’d love to take Eli, a brownstone with a bedroom that Eli’s eyes were made for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trophies Under Glass

He can feel the weight of years pressing on him.  Not because he’s old – though sometimes he suspects he is – but because he’s tired.  He’s done so much.

Back at home in California, he has an honest-to-God trophy room, framed magazine covers and Super Bowl rings, press clippings and ad campaigns, and replicas of the Vince Lombardi under glass.  He has fast cars and fancy clothes, designer children and a trophy wife that he keeps in a case when he doesn’t need her.

In Boston, photographers follow him around, and people stop him on the streets.  Sometimes he feels like he is this town, its beating heart, and he owes its people so much more.  Strength and endurance and glory, and maybe a little bit of perfection along the way.

There’s a place in the Back Bay that he’d love to take Eli.  A sailboat he could rent, or own if the fancy struck him, that they could take out onto the water.  A brownstone with a bedroom that Eli’s eyes were made for, where he could lick the salt spray off his skin.  But Eli stays at home in Jersey with his wife and his daughters.  It’s better – safer – that way.  They haven’t really seen each other in years, not outside of stadiums, where the hideaways are numerous, but the kisses always brief.

The night before the big game, he calls Peyton and wishes him good luck.  They’re friends – of course they’re friends, the story’s perfect that way – but he fucking loves that man – like a brother – so much it hurts.  Sometimes it seems like they move in lockstep and their brains work as one.  He’ll fall asleep thinking about a play, and he’ll wake up to a text from Peyton about the very same thing.

It was at Peyton’s house that he first met Eli.  He was still in college, young, fresh faced – and God, he still looks just like that – with shaggy summer hair and a peach fuzz stubble.  Peyton walked in on them lying in bed together, kissing, and he just laughed.  Tom kissed Eli again, completely drunk with it.

Eli will be there tomorrow, cheering on his brother.  The whole Manning dynasty.  Sometimes he finds it hard to forgive those men – those boys – those complete, utter children – for being born to something he had to build from scratch.  But he does – he always does.

He won’t be watching.  It’s too hard – to let a Manning beat him – to know he lost again.  He’ll think of Eli watching from a box, behind glass, from a sun soaked beach in Costa Rica, Gisele next to him, their daughter in her arms, the boys playing down the sand.

He held Ava on the day she was born and cried – tears of joy – because she was so beautiful and Eli was so happy.  He knew – he’d always known – how it changed your life to hold something in the palm of your hands that you created yourself.  He loves his children – his wife, his home, all the trappings – and he doesn’t begrudge Eli – for moving on – his own.

What he does begrudge Eli, he doesn’t know.  Taking immortality away from him.  Growing up – because he did, no matter how he looks, a Super Bowl win or two, or a wife or a child or just years and he’s not that kid with the soft eyes and the willing body, so eager to please, so eager to learn.  But he’s not that man, either – Peyton’s friend from the NFL – the Tom Brady who could do no wrong, who only knew how to win.

He wants to pick up the phone and call Eli and tell him that he’s sorry – he’s not sorry – he feels bad – he still loves him.  But he knows how to lose now, he knows how to let things go and shut away the past.

There are so many ghosts that he locks away, and he thinks he should have a room for them, too.  The Super Bowl he didn’t win for glory, and the one he didn’t win for Myra.  The betrayal of a teammate.  The money he gave up just to lose Wes anyway and the rings he could never win for a friend – for the best man at his wedding – who might be winning the one he wanted.

He tells Wes he feels old, and Wes just laughs and says _you need a break, man_.  And he’s got a break, a day, a week, a couple of months.  They pile on.  How can he not be suffocating?


End file.
